So the verdict is apparently due in the Meredith Kercher murder trial today

[PortofinoRevisited]

BBC Link

The appeal after the overturned convictions. I hope this can all be brought to a close now.

Also, I thought in Italy the panel of judges includes lay members (ie jurors in all but name)?

Umlauf you described earlier what I always thought about - AK was 19 and abroad speaking shaky italian and making the best of a terrifying situation. How she can have outwitted the whole of the Perugian police force I really don't see - unless of course it really was witchcraft.

Did you know Meredith and Amanda? It must have been fairly traumatic for you just being there at the same time and the same age.

Wasn't all the negative media stuff about foxy knoxy etc. in the British tabloids, which was given huge publicity because Meredith was British.
Our tabloids had nothing to do with the Italian judicial system.
As far as whether she and Rudi Solletico sp are guilty, I haven't got a clue.

I don't know, I'm afraid, Birdsighland. I'm no expert. DH works for an American company, and they were talking about it today. His American colleagues told him.

From what I understand, the US is reluctant to extradite any of it's citizens full stop.

I'd missed a link up thread and answered my own questions.

What a horrible murder. Poor Meredith and her family.

Reading that does make me understand why her family consider it vital AK and RS return to face (another) trial.

Angela- yes, this trial was made up of judges and jurors.

I got my amount-of-trials wrong yesterday: apparently the original trial never got to the 3rd grade (Cassazione) but only the Appeal, which was when they were released. Then it was ruled to have been a mistrial and so the trial which finished on Thursday was the Appeal again.

RS is now back down in my neck of the woods. Apparently, on Thursday, knowing the verdict was due that evening, and having stated many times on TV that he would be present in the courtroom (and he has been, every day thus far) he and his girlfriend decided to leave Florence and drive for 600 km to Austria for a "trip".

I have no idea if RS/AK are guilty or not. But that was probably his most unwise move in 7 years and now has the whole country doing the face. His lawyer's version is that once his Dad rang him with the verdict he turned round and came back into Italy, to be met at the border and have his passport removed. He had no intention of fleeing justice.

I imagine, in the heat of being terrified he was going to be sent down again, he did exactly that. Get in his car and run for the hills. I imagine, his Dad, (who always seems very dignified on TV) talked him into coming back.

He gave an interview in a bar on the way back to US TV (in English) but refused to speak to Italian journalists also there. Which makes everyone think he has signed an exclusive and will be on the 4 hr long Sunday afternoon chat show thing tomorrow.

Little was said about AK while I was watching, although there was one thing which had me doing the face. In the US interview she said she would never willingly return to Italy. (And neither would I....I had a fecking boring 6 mths in Belgium and wild horses and handsome fellas wouldn't get me back, and I never spent time in clink) The Italian subtitles missed out the word "willingly". I might email the programme about that.

The point at which I stomped off to bed was when a (female) journalist, for whom previously I've had a lot of respect, started talking about how perceptions of the case were skewed because: "the victim was ugly, the guy in jail is black, and the 2 who have gone free are young and beautiful".

Which journalist was that Sangria ?

When I first heard about the case I was quite swayed by the character assassinations the media pumped out. Particularly in relation to knox's 'strange' behaviour. However, having investigated a bit deeper there isn't a shred of credible evidence, and I just find this impossible given the circumstances in which the police believe the murder to have been carried out in.

Unfortunately I think I got caught up in wanting them to be guilty, rather than actually having reason to believe so. The one thing that I kept coming back to was could Rudy have acted alone? According to many pathologists it's highly possible, and thus this is a much more likely and believable scenario. If only the police hadn't made such a hash up of the whole thing, maybe the guy they know is guilty (Rudy?) would be serving a life sentence and the kercher family could be satisfied that justice had been carried out for Meredith. Now it's looking like they'll never be given that justice due to the pursuit of fanciful stories and a reduced sentence for the one person who actually has evidence linking them to the crime.

I agree that Amanda knox's behaviour is odd, she comes across as quite a dislikable person, but that's not what she is on trial for, and that does not make her guilty! There's plenty of odd characters out there, I myself come across as quite detached and cold, so heaven forbid I should ever be 'involved' in a murder investigation, lest they presume my personality is evidence of guilt!

To all the people saying she shouldn't be doing books etc, imagine spending four years of your life in prison for a murder you did not commit?! You would want to tell your story too probably. This is not to take away from the awful suffering that merediths family must have gone through, but convicting people where there is more than a reasonable doubt of their guilt is not going to bring her back, and is not justice.

I often wonder if knox's role in the whole thing was in introducing Rudy and Meredith, therefore in some ways it would be understandable if people believed her irresponsibility contributed to merediths death. This is all just speculation though, the actual 'facts' are a bit of a minefield! Very horrible sad case all round.

TheOne

You know their phones were switched off for most of the night?

Well, AK was given the night off by her boss, they were a new (ish) young couple... I'd have switched my phone off too. :o

Has RG ever identified AK and RS as the other people he says he committed the crime with?

Gio'- it was Barbara Palombelli. Who I usually find quite reasonable.

I think the accusation of Lamumba wasn't just made during interrogation when questions were being thrown at her. She and her parents may have misrepresented the length of the interrogation to make it seem especially gruelling anyway. She stated it in a written testimony which she composed when she was on her own. She stated they Lumumba and Meridith locked themselves in a room and AK covered her heard to the screaming. That's a little more than a yes, yes under duress. And repeated it again during an intercepted private conversation with her mother.

It wasn't an aside erroneously thrown out there under duress and then immediately retracted.

She was convicted of slander. Whatever about the mistakes make about sealing off and investigating the evidence, I don't know if their legal system is as easily discredited. They have a system where judges are specially trained don't they? It is not barristers and solicitors who are appointed (are those appointees political).

Maybe it is to AK and RS's advantage that the evidence wasn't more carefully dealt with.

I never met either horse I was at a different university to them! just got caught up in the atmosphere. I've never really used my Italian since, and have forgotten most of it

People are funny about language, acquisition is an odd process. After 2 months in Italy, I was fluent in cafe, bar, directions speak, but could not have held a proper discussion with an Italian about the case, let alone with a policeman when under suspicion myself. You just don't have the vocab if you've never used it.

What language did she write her testimony in, does anyone know?

I have lived here for almost 20 years can hear that AK is fairly fluent but no great shakes still in Italian tbh. So I would say that 7 years ago, she would have had fairly rudimentary Italian.

I am guessing that initially the police would have questioned her/them without an interpreter and he probably answered for both of them, and then once they were separated an interpreter would have been called in. They tend to be even if not necessary, as a precaution. (I am on the list of our local plod's interpreters if anyone gets arrested down here, give Sangria a call )

This is it I think. English.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html

and can hear that AK is fairly fluent.

The translator said AK wasn't hit by the police.

Sorry, I think it was in the interrogation she said they were in a locked room.

That 'note' sounds like a translation - she might not be a fluent Italian speaker but she is a fluent English speaker & that is not fluent English!

Is there any more information about where it came from?

Oh - maybe it's the result of her having been speaking Italian some of the time for a couple of months - it mangled her English in the process.

Still reads very oddly in places

I don't think the purpose of the PR company was to make everyone think Amanda was likeable. I think its main remit was to place enough contradictory stories about the evidence that people questioned whether any conviction was sound. I think they've met that remit quite well.

It's rambling and confused. I don't think anyone needs to be quite that vague, even after smoking some weed. It reads like someone just simply not willing to tell the truth.

Those are her words but she is trying to write in a way that they could understand. Interesting how she refers to it as a 'story'...

In Italian, the word "story" is the same for a fictional story and a factual account, a history. Same in french and Spanish.

There's some serious discrepancies relating to

Length of time AK was questioned for
Her treatment (being denied food water) which led her to make false confessions - due to fear and exhaustion.

The police put her interview (prior to her confession if being at cottage) at under two hours and there was no evidence of mistreatment. This was after RS refused to be AK alibi any more.

I find that very strange and shows that these stories of police mistreatment of AK are now accepted as fact when actually they are just press reports and not corroborated by witness statements (interpretors court statement) or by the court.

It is all so tragic and bizarre.

I'm horrified at the Italian reporting and the description of Meredith. Regardless that it's not even true - how fucking fucked are you as a journalist to dishonour a young murder victim.